Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Slight Changers, I've got a special guest for
Speaker 1: you this week, Brenee Brown. You may have heard Brene's
Speaker 1: ted talk, The Power of Vulnerability. It's been viewed more
Speaker 1: than sixty four million times. She's a social science professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Houston and is best known for
Speaker 1: her research on complex emotions like shame and vulnerability. She's
Speaker 1: also the best selling author of books like Braving the
Speaker 1: Wilderness and Atlas of the Heart. A few years ago,
Speaker 1: I was a guest on her podcast, Dare to Lead.
Speaker 1: We talked about cultivating courage and the face of change
Speaker 1: and how change can affect our identities. And so today
Speaker 1: I wanted to continue that conversation and talk a bit
Speaker 1: more about identity, how we can find ourselves picking up
Speaker 1: and holding on to different ones over the course of
Speaker 1: our lives. Brenee and I discussed a few identities that
Speaker 1: she holds particularly close. Recovering, perfectionist, reluctant public figure, partner
Speaker 1: to her husband, and parent to two kids. We began
Speaker 1: our conversation talking about one of her earliest identities, big sister.
Speaker 1: She says her role as big sister really started to
Speaker 1: take shape when she was around eight years old.
Speaker 2: In my family, there was a very fine line between
Speaker 2: older sister and co parent.
Speaker 3: I think those.
Speaker 2: Identities grew together in an inextricably connected way, for better
Speaker 2: and worse. My parents, like many of our parents, really
Speaker 2: had no idea what they were doing, and they were
Speaker 2: doing the best they could. They both came from a
Speaker 2: ton of trauma, and so very early on, my job
Speaker 2: was to maintain as much stability as possible in a
Speaker 2: very tumultuous household.
Speaker 1: In the context of young Brune, did that look like
Speaker 1: emotional support?
Speaker 3: It's a tough question. I think that identity of.
Speaker 2: Older sister, co parent protector grew in harmony with another
Speaker 2: identity that's really profoundly still who I am, which is patternfinder.
Speaker 2: I could understand very quickly what comment between my parents
Speaker 2: or someone else that was maybe at the house.
Speaker 3: Would unwind in a way that.
Speaker 2: Would make things tenuous and possibly dangerous. I think I
Speaker 2: was always kind of of running around sorting things, calming
Speaker 2: things down, intervening, making sure everything was as okay as
Speaker 2: it could be, to prevent some kind of blow up.
Speaker 1: I love this idea of patternfinder. I think in so
Speaker 1: many ways we're kindred spirits in that way. I mean, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, Like, even though I was the
Speaker 1: youngest of four, I was so emotionally attuned to dynamics
Speaker 1: and was trying to like implicitly or explicitly negotiate things,
Speaker 1: and it was almost impossible for me to ever turn
Speaker 1: that switch.
Speaker 3: Off one hundred percent. I actually.
Speaker 2: Have spent probably twenty years of my life trying to
Speaker 2: do work to turn that off. I am I am
Speaker 2: always assessing, and I very quickly can see how behavior, emotion,
Speaker 2: and cognition are connected in people. I mean my family
Speaker 2: growing up, if someone made a joke, everyone would laugh
Speaker 2: and I would just kind of like uh. And I
Speaker 2: could see if the exact same joke was made but
Speaker 2: the context was different, there is potentially going to be
Speaker 2: a screaming match or potential violence just based on the
Speaker 2: context of it happening. And it explains a lot about me,
Speaker 2: which is I was not fun. I was the protector
Speaker 2: or the protector in waiting. It's kind of like that
Speaker 2: movie where the where the kids like I see dead people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sixth sense yeah yeah, y yeah.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like I see when shit's getting ready
Speaker 2: to go down. Yeah, absolutely, And I don't intervene anymore.
Speaker 2: But I also, you know, want to high tail it
Speaker 2: out of there and take the people I love with me.
Speaker 1: How do you see your relationship as protector patterns secret
Speaker 1: big sister having evolved over time? So, now that you're
Speaker 1: in adulthood and you're outside of the immediately threatening environment,
Speaker 1: let's say, a family life, how has that role changed
Speaker 1: for you, if at all. I mean, it still might
Speaker 1: have those same tones. I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: I think when you come from kind of an eggshell environment,
Speaker 2: there's a hyper vigilance around what's going to cause the
Speaker 2: response that's dangerous, either verbally, emotionally, or maybe even physically.
Speaker 2: I have done and am doing a lot of personal
Speaker 2: work around it, and continue to do it. I think
Speaker 2: my sisters and I call each other out on it.
Speaker 2: One of my sisters will say, hey, hey, hey, we
Speaker 2: know how to handle we're grown up too now, and
Speaker 2: we also think we can do some of this way
Speaker 2: better than you can do it, So back off, call
Speaker 2: your therapist, sit down, you know.
Speaker 3: And so I'm like, Okay, yeah, that's great because I can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, what a wonderful evolution. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hop to the next identity lily pad if you will,
Speaker 1: and talk about perfectionism. So yet another one that we
Speaker 1: share in common, Vernee, where do you think the roots
Speaker 1: of your perfectionism emerged? So let's take genes off the table.
Speaker 1: So let's say you know, we both have a genetic
Speaker 1: predisposition towards this, but environmentally, what do you think might
Speaker 1: have led to that?
Speaker 2: I from an early age, as the oldest, as the protector,
Speaker 2: I saw and experienced a link between my loveability and
Speaker 2: how good I was, and I needed to be morally
Speaker 2: ethically performatively, you know, like in every dimension good equated
Speaker 2: to love ability.
Speaker 1: And was this love from your parents or just in
Speaker 1: general from all the adults in your life?
Speaker 2: I think it was from all the adults. I think
Speaker 2: there was this collection of moments that just continue to
Speaker 2: provide data piece after data piece after data piece, you know,
Speaker 2: like dependability, sacrifice, manners, grades, a million pieces of data
Speaker 2: that reinforce this idea that good is lovable and not
Speaker 2: good is not lovable.
Speaker 1: Is there a time you remember where you actively wished
Speaker 1: you were not a perfectionist, where you felt it's sabotaging
Speaker 1: some aspect of your life.
Speaker 2: I guess one of the things that's dawning on me
Speaker 2: as we're having this conversation right now, is the idea
Speaker 2: of perfectionism being what will other people think? I am
Speaker 2: not as vulnerable to that as I used to be.
Speaker 2: Where I am still vulnerable is when people say you're
Speaker 2: not a good person. That I have to work on
Speaker 2: that to not be crippling. So when I do something
Speaker 2: that people disagree with, or I have a position that
Speaker 2: people disagree with and they attribute that to what they
Speaker 2: think they know about me, that can be really, really
Speaker 2: painful for me.
Speaker 1: And how do you engage with that pain? What's your response?
Speaker 1: Because surely it's not just changing your position, right, you
Speaker 1: have a set of values, and so I wonder when
Speaker 1: you run up against that tension, but appeasing that audience
Speaker 1: by changing your point of view isn't on the table.
Speaker 1: What do you do?
Speaker 2: I try to always keep curiosity in learning on the table.
Speaker 2: I try to extend the same generosity to other people
Speaker 2: that I'd want extended to me. I try to take
Speaker 2: in what's learnable and then what's mean spirited or hateful.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to do it really well. To
Speaker 2: be honest with you, I don't have a solution there.
Speaker 1: No, and I'm with you girl. So yeah, there was
Speaker 1: an experience that I had at work where because of
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding, I felt like a colleague of mine thought
Speaker 1: I wasn't a good person and she wouldn't engage with
Speaker 1: me on the topic. So I never had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to conflict resolve. And this was one of the most
Speaker 1: maddening experiences for me because I am not prideful. I
Speaker 1: will come to every table admit where I went wrong
Speaker 1: or what my weaknesses are. But the fact she wasn't
Speaker 1: willing to engage brene put me into this frantic state
Speaker 1: of panic, like I will never get resolution here. I
Speaker 1: will never be able to prove to this person that
Speaker 1: I'm actually good and I didn't mean any harm. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is she even is upset
Speaker 1: with me about. And the only thing I had in
Speaker 1: that moment to work with was my own brain, because
Speaker 1: I had no ability to communicate with her. So I
Speaker 1: had to find a way to change my own perception,
Speaker 1: and so I visualized what it meant for her to
Speaker 1: maybe think that I was a bad person, And in
Speaker 1: my head, the visual was there are these electrical signals
Speaker 1: in her brain that occasionally occur where these neurons fire
Speaker 1: and say I don't like Maya, okay, and it's fleeting,
Speaker 1: and like, I'm not a narcisst I know it's having
Speaker 1: very infrequently, but all it is is just this transient
Speaker 1: electrical signal, and we pump so much air into this
Speaker 1: feeling of what other people think of us as this
Speaker 1: massive concept, and for some reason, that visual took the
Speaker 1: air out of it. It like deflated that balloon. It
Speaker 1: took the power away from her. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to walk around this world and there's
Speaker 1: going to be humans who have that neural activity that
Speaker 1: I don't agree with Maya. I don't like Maya. I
Speaker 1: think Maya's XYZ. And maybe that's a world that I
Speaker 1: can comfortably live in and be happy in and find
Speaker 1: peace in anyway. I don't know if that's helpful, but
Speaker 1: it's just it's taken some of the emotional punch out
Speaker 1: of this feeling of someone not liking you or not
Speaker 1: approving of you.
Speaker 2: God, I'm like mesmerized, I'm hanging on every word. I
Speaker 2: just think it's so right sizing that it's a fleeting
Speaker 2: thought in the mind of a single person that we
Speaker 2: have no control over.
Speaker 3: I mean, it makes so much sense to me.
Speaker 2: And the disproportionate amount of energy we spend compared to
Speaker 2: the fleeting littles exactly mine.
Speaker 1: You would have thought I was getting my PhD in
Speaker 1: this woman during that period of time, I was like
Speaker 1: ninety percent of my brain power was like how do
Speaker 1: I get her to not be mad at me? And
Speaker 1: I don't even know why she's mad? You know, I
Speaker 1: put so much mental labor into trying to solve this
Speaker 1: problem that was unsolvable. Yeah, I meanside though, by the
Speaker 1: way it just takes on this point, as you might think, well,
Speaker 1: then every positive thought people have about me is transient too.
Speaker 1: But I actually think it's good to think of the
Speaker 1: positive stuff as transient as well. I mean, because otherwise
Speaker 1: you can over index on that, you can attach so
Speaker 1: much value and self worth to that and then suddenly
Speaker 1: collapses and you don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: I absolutely and the positive vilance is much more scary
Speaker 2: for me than the negative personally. To be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I don't like that party there very much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, SayMore. I'm so curious, especially as because you're such
Speaker 1: a public figure and so I'm so curious to know
Speaker 1: how that intersects.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll go back to Braving the Wilderness. When I
Speaker 2: wrote that book, i shared my support for Black Lives
Speaker 2: Matter and why I thought it was a really important
Speaker 2: movement that we should be paying attention to. And it
Speaker 2: was the first time I experienced people walking out of
Speaker 2: event centers and places during my book tour talks specifically
Speaker 2: around that issue, like getting up in the middle of
Speaker 2: like what I'm talking, people said they felt personally betrayed
Speaker 2: by me and disappointed in me because my work had
Speaker 2: meant so much to them and overcoming hard things the
Speaker 2: death of a child or you know, their own eating disorder,
Speaker 2: their divorce, or you know, just like really hard things,
Speaker 2: And then how could I betray them by having an
Speaker 2: opinion a political belief that was so far from their own.
Speaker 2: And what I realized in that moment is that's a
Speaker 2: result of people projecting on me who they need me
Speaker 2: to be. Does that make sense to you at all?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that is so interesting because basically, they they
Speaker 1: found your work meaningful, therapy, resonant. It's helped them during
Speaker 1: a hard time, and obviously they have some fraction of
Speaker 1: an understanding of who you are. Right, they're consuming a
Speaker 1: book you've written, and what you're saying is they're essentially
Speaker 1: filling in all the gaps in their knowledge of who
Speaker 1: you are with an idealized version of you that meets
Speaker 1: their criteria.
Speaker 3: I remember the first time I became aware of it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I was telling a story and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I was so mad. I was flipping this driver off
Speaker 2: underneath that, you know, underneath the steering wall where they
Speaker 2: couldn't see me. And someone said, you really actually don't
Speaker 2: sound very wholehearted at all.
Speaker 3: And I was like what.
Speaker 2: And they're like, I thought you were all about wholeheartedness,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I think I'm about deep, flawed, messy, lovable,
Speaker 2: amazing humanity like I, you know, And so I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be a good avatar for you.
Speaker 1: Looking for a messy, complicated, deeply flawed person.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: More of my conversation with Brene after the break. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: One identity Brene Brown has had for a long time
Speaker 1: is partner to her husband Steve. They've been together for decades.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know more about how this identity has
Speaker 1: evolved over time because I'm a hopeless romantic and I
Speaker 1: also watch crappy TV like The Bachelor. Just indulge me
Speaker 1: for indulgent for a moment.
Speaker 3: This I love about you.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many things to love about you,
Speaker 2: but this is one of my favorites.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: I may or may not have attended the live taping
Speaker 1: of After the Final Rows in LA for The Bachelor,
Speaker 1: So maybe I don't know. Did I miss a work
Speaker 1: dated that. I don't know?
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know either. We will never know, actually.
Speaker 1: Like who would do that? I mean, wow, what a
Speaker 1: wait of time? Right? Yeah? Okay, so just indulge me
Speaker 1: for a second. And I would love to hear about
Speaker 1: falling in love with Steve, Like when did you know
Speaker 1: that you wanted to marry him? And what was what
Speaker 1: were the traits that he exhibited that made you think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think this guy. I could make it work with
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 2: I mean I the first time I met him, I
Speaker 2: went home and told my roommate, I think I'm going
Speaker 2: to marry this guy.
Speaker 3: And we were young.
Speaker 2: We were lifeguards in love at a pool over the summer.
Speaker 1: And how old were you?
Speaker 3: God?
Speaker 4: We were.
Speaker 2: Eighteen and twenty one, and so we made mixtapes and.
Speaker 3: We we like it was like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and he comes from a lot
Speaker 2: of hard family stuff too, and he was the first
Speaker 2: person that we talked about that. And then we dated
Speaker 2: off and on for seven years and got married and
Speaker 2: we've been married now.
Speaker 3: It'll be thirty years in June.
Speaker 2: Wow, COVID the last couple of years has been the
Speaker 2: hardest season of our marriage, for sure. I think we
Speaker 2: both believe it's supposed to be hard as hell.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about why COVID in particular was
Speaker 1: so hard.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised our marriage survived it. I think we both are.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, he's a pediatrician. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: keep a business afloat. My mom had just been diagnosed
Speaker 2: with rapid onset dementia, and then we tried to get
Speaker 2: snink my mom out of her assisted living facility, like
Speaker 2: in the hour before it shut down, where we couldn't
Speaker 2: get in everybody's living together. It was just like it
Speaker 2: was what everybody was going through in the world, you know,
Speaker 2: And we had resources and access to things that the
Speaker 2: vast majority of people didn't have, and we were still
Speaker 2: just barely holding on and we did not have any
Speaker 2: bandwidth for each other or anything but what was in
Speaker 2: front of us to accomplish that day. And that's the
Speaker 2: conditions under which things, you know, fall apart. So it
Speaker 2: was a rebuild. And we're also in a weird season
Speaker 2: of our lives. Our youngest is going to college. There's
Speaker 2: a real like, hi, and Brene, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: I'm Steve, nice to meet you. It's a season on
Speaker 2: it in its own.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, you had mentioned that you and Steve
Speaker 1: both believe that marriage is supposed to be hard as hell,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if you can unpack that for me.
Speaker 2: So I think expecting it to be hard, expecting it
Speaker 2: to be work, it's just not two people hanging out
Speaker 2: being themselves. There's like that third entity that is your
Speaker 2: relationship that very few of us saw modeled how to
Speaker 2: build it in a way that we want to be
Speaker 2: in it. My parents are divorced, Steve's parents are divorced.
Speaker 2: See's parents are divorced, remarried, were married, divorced. My parents divorce,
Speaker 2: We married divorced, you know, like, and so we knew
Speaker 2: what we didn't want it to be and we also
Speaker 2: just knew it was going to be a ton of work.
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of hard.
Speaker 2: Shit in my life, nothing compares to how hard this is.
Speaker 2: And so I think that having kids shocked to the system,
Speaker 2: Balancing careers shock to the system, navigating different career trajectories
Speaker 2: and ambitions, death, illness shocks to the system. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think I heard Paul Newman saying the reason why
Speaker 2: his marriage lasted so long is neither one of them
Speaker 2: wanted to get a divorce at.
Speaker 3: The same time. And I think that's so funny and true.
Speaker 3: But I think very few of us know how to.
Speaker 2: Fight well, talk about our feelings a way where we
Speaker 2: can stay curious with each other and not defensive.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm still learning that stuff, Like we're still
Speaker 3: trying to.
Speaker 2: Get better, and I mean, hey, the jury still out,
Speaker 2: I would you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot
Speaker 2: of shit can go bad really fast. But to this point,
Speaker 2: we were able to coordinate our individual growth inside of
Speaker 2: our partnership.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. So I'm just reflecting this moment. It's
Speaker 1: hearkening back to twenty sixteen when my husband Jimmy and
Speaker 1: I got married, and I remember writing our vows, and
Speaker 1: at the end it was something like, you know, with
Speaker 1: all these people surrounding us who love us so dearly,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel that we can beat anything. And
Speaker 1: then I like took my pen and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that there are so many things that
Speaker 1: could break us, Like, yeah, I have the humility to
Speaker 1: know all the many things that could break us. And
Speaker 1: so I remember striking that out and writing instead, the
Speaker 1: odds are in our favor, which was such a maya
Speaker 1: thing to put in a vows and made perfect sense
Speaker 1: to Jimmy and probably made it more romantic from his perspective.
Speaker 1: But it's so awesome.
Speaker 3: It's so statistically, I think the odds are good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the odds are good. So that was kind of
Speaker 1: acknowledging what you've been saying this whole time, which is
Speaker 1: things can get really really hard. Yeah, as you think
Speaker 1: to the future, is there an identity that you would
Speaker 1: love to lay claim to that you would love to
Speaker 1: have but you haven't yet? God Lee, Sorry, that's a toughie.
Speaker 3: No, it's so good.
Speaker 2: I think the identity that I have right now that
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see where it goes is two
Speaker 2: have a my guess our mom and partner. I I
Speaker 2: there's so much better sweetness in being a mom, because
Speaker 2: the whole gig is such a shit show because you're
Speaker 2: just really trying to help them leave you, and so
Speaker 2: that's like tough.
Speaker 3: But of course, yeah, yeah, But I will say that
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: Loved being the mom of adult children as much as
Speaker 2: I loved you know, four year olds and eight year
Speaker 2: olds and twelve year olds and fifteen year olds and toddlers.
Speaker 2: And it's just watching my kids figure out who they
Speaker 2: want to be and how they want to contribute to
Speaker 2: the world and navigate their own partnerships and friendships is
Speaker 2: just such a privilege to get to do and it's
Speaker 2: so fun, and so I'm excited to continue that role
Speaker 2: and just to see how it plays out and to continue,
Speaker 2: you know, the privilege of getting to be a part
Speaker 2: of their lives. And I think also I'm very curious
Speaker 2: and interested in committed to figuring out how Steve and
Speaker 2: I do this next season. And I'll be curious to
Speaker 2: see what I want to do with my career and
Speaker 2: what I won't want to do anymore. And I have
Speaker 2: some some usual some suspects on the list of what
Speaker 2: I don't want to do anymore and some suspects on
Speaker 2: the list of what I might want to do. I
Speaker 2: think getting off social for a year was really helpful
Speaker 2: because I do think there is the leading of who
Speaker 2: you are for the avatar.
Speaker 3: Of who you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely a.
Speaker 2: Lot of the systems that we thought would be good
Speaker 2: around this or broken and the algorithms are set the
Speaker 2: wrong way.
Speaker 3: Do you agree, yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know what the answer is. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to build community have impact. Yeah, in a world that's
Speaker 2: full of so much pain and projection.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the experience of your advantage point is.
Speaker 1: I only have my own. But I can see myself
Speaker 1: tempering classic ambition in this space because I'm afraid of
Speaker 1: it because it just.
Speaker 2: Say that again, because it seems like really important. I
Speaker 2: really want to understand what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So I want my ideas to reach as many people
Speaker 1: as possible. What I found myself resisting in the recent
Speaker 1: online climate is more followers, more likes, more downloads, more this,
Speaker 1: more that, because I don't actually know if that's a
Speaker 1: net good anymore, And so then what becomes the north star? Like,
Speaker 1: what is my goal? I mean, it's meaningful connection with
Speaker 1: individual people, right, how does that scale? And the current
Speaker 1: social media environment is so unappealing to me because of
Speaker 1: what it incentivizes. But at the same time, I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time doing a lot of thoughtful work.
Speaker 1: I want the conversations on the show to be widely heard.
Speaker 1: I want it in as many earbudds as possible. So like,
Speaker 1: there's a tension there for me and I just don't
Speaker 1: know what the answers are.
Speaker 2: That's just such a beautiful framing of the question. I
Speaker 2: one of the questions that I'm asking myself based on
Speaker 2: what you just said, is how do you operationalize ambition?
Speaker 2: How do you set metrics for success in the current
Speaker 2: milieu that we live in.
Speaker 1: So, like, one example of this is that I know
Speaker 1: that a slight change of plans would quote perform better
Speaker 1: if I did more episodes a year. This is a
Speaker 1: situation where I will only produce high quality content if
Speaker 1: I have a life that I live outside of this world,
Speaker 1: because otherwise I'm not living enough of life to be
Speaker 1: interesting or to learn to consume other people's content, to
Speaker 1: read books and just be a better person.
Speaker 2: But let's but let's can I just could you just
Speaker 2: indulge me for a second, please, talking about a powerful
Speaker 2: and beautiful way of operationalizing ambition. I am ambitious for
Speaker 2: converse I want to have. I am ambitious for books
Speaker 2: I want to read. I am ambitious for my own life.
Speaker 2: Operationalizing ambition in a way that includes our lives and
Speaker 2: our families and our health and our mental wellness, and
Speaker 2: then setting metrics for success that include those same things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: One thing I've done recently, just in case this is
Speaker 1: the thing you want to do too, can really help
Speaker 1: me is every time I get a letter from a
Speaker 1: listener over the last couple of years, the ones that
Speaker 1: really are so beautiful and meaningful and that you're just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: how did I earn this trust from you? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's such an honor, right, So I've been screencapping them,
Speaker 1: and I recently created an album in my photos app
Speaker 1: which is called Slight Change Love Letters. So on a
Speaker 1: rainy day where I feel low morale, go to the album,
Speaker 1: remind yourself, reorient yourself, reground yourself and what really matters
Speaker 1: and is actually like all of these tangible lives that
Speaker 1: have been improved by the work that you do, and
Speaker 1: that's just going to have to be enough. That's going
Speaker 1: to have to be what matters, and it's all that matters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and oh okay, let me just share this with you,
Speaker 1: the interview that you did with me on Dare to Lead. Yes,
Speaker 1: I heard from a woman who said, I heard your
Speaker 1: conversation with Brene, and I've been trying to reckon with
Speaker 1: the loss of my nineteen year old son to a
Speaker 1: drug overdose, and that conversation that you had with Brene
Speaker 1: unlocked healing for me.
Speaker 2: M I mean that woman that that story, that story
Speaker 2: is kind of the summary of our entire conversation in
Speaker 2: my heart, Maya, because that story wasn't like, oh, you
Speaker 2: and Brene are such badasses and y'all are rock stars
Speaker 2: and y'all are the best and better than everyone. It
Speaker 2: was you had a conversation that was intimate and hard,
Speaker 2: and that specific conversation unlocked something in my grieving process
Speaker 2: about my child who died. It wasn't the avatar creation.
Speaker 2: It was you said something that helped me heal. And
Speaker 2: it's not about celebrity, and it's not about fame, and
Speaker 2: it's not about who we are as people flawed imperfect,
Speaker 2: messy learners. It's about trying to put good work into
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Every time I talk to.
Speaker 2: You, I learned things, and I freaking love how your
Speaker 2: mind and your heart work, and I love how they
Speaker 2: work together.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: It's a really unique and special thing that I know
Speaker 2: you work hard at.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. And I've found today just so
Speaker 1: lovely to talk to a kindred spirit.
Speaker 4: Same.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you want to
Speaker 1: listen to my episode with Brene on dare to Lead,
Speaker 1: check out the link in our show notes. And if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this conversation, we on the Slight Change team
Speaker 1: would be so grateful if you shared the episode with
Speaker 1: someone you know, maybe it's someone who's finding their own
Speaker 1: identity shifting lately. It helps us get out the words
Speaker 1: so we can keep making more episodes for you. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in just a few weeks with a new
Speaker 1: season of A Slight Change of Plans. See you then.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
Speaker 1: our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson, Morgan,
Speaker 1: our senior producer Trisha Bobida and our engineer Eric o'kwang.
Speaker 1: Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and Ginger Smith
Speaker 1: helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries, so a big thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone there, and of course a very special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.